>Right, but it also doesn't mean issues with the OS. They can be issues with the desktop environment.There could be for me as an average end user I don't care that every Linux Distro is a bazaar engineering project where the OS and DE are not built and seamlessly integrated together by the same company like Windows and MAcOS.
>I used windows for a long time, but not in years.
I have.
>So do tell me for example, if I wanted to shrink the task bar to say, 25px height, which is much smaller from what Windows allowed me in the past, how would you do this?
I mean now you're moving the goalposts and clutching at straws. You cant with a straight face tell me that the faults with Linux/Ubuntu such as lack of browser HW acceleration, lack of fractional scaling, lack of hibernate are comparable to the fact that you can't set the taskbar to an arbitrary size. The former is actual issues, the latter is a lack of configuration options. Those are not the same.
>Additionally, many of the guides I'm reading for removing ads and telemetry are much more involved than adding those two lines to the X config.
Like I said, I can live with telemetry if the OS lets me get work and entertainment done. I can't live with a GNU/Neckbeard OS where basic stuff doesn't work properly and makes my life hell.
>I'd rather have screen tearing than telemetry and ads, and if this mythical "average user" feels the opposite way, I'd wager say that's a user failure, not an OS failure.
I feel the opposite. I need a sane, humane OS first, that actually gets the basics right so I can get work/play done and get on with my life. What good is the lack of telemetry if the screen tears and everything is blurry, or too small, or too big due to lack of fractional scaling? Now you're damaging your eyesight but at least you don't have telemetry.
At least telemetry doesn't damage my eyesight like Linux can, and if you think your eyes are less valuable than telemetry, than I think that's a user failure, not an OS failure.